


On One Hand, Nick Valentine

by Nebulad



Series: Highfalutin Supermutant [2]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 20:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6872584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The whole… synth thing doesn’t bother you?” he asked tentatively.</p><p>“I thought about that you know. I knew you were gunna ask so I sat down and figured I oughta give it a nice long think. You wanna know what I came up with?” She angled herself towards him a bit more fully, holding out two lightly clenched fists. She opened the one, splaying her fingers. “On one hand, so what? And in the other…” she gave a little flourish before opening that one, “who cares?”</p><p>“Almost everyone I ever met cares,” he told her wryly. The effect was a little lost because the hand thing was cute and for someone with plastic skin, he had a terrible poker face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On One Hand, Nick Valentine

Micah had all her metaphorical cards spread on his desk, staring him down for all the world like a dame with an adventure in mind. He could feel his fans moving in his gut and wondered if they shouldn’t have been working a little harder to keep him cool— the clockwork was moving around in his head _real_ slow while she waited for him to respond.

In his defence, it’d been pretty damn spur of the moment. It was pretty late in the evening, his internal clock reminding him that about now was the time to turn on all the stadium’s lights (it was an old process he’d put in back when it was his job to know that sort of thing, but couldn’t figure out how to flush it out now). His secretary headed over to the Dugout to make eyes at the waitress, but as always they left the agency’s neon pink sign lit. One second he’d been finishing up the paperwork that Ellie had left him, trying to keep his writing neat enough for her to read; a second later, Micah had burst into the office wearing her scavenged duster, slamming her palm down loud enough to make him jump.

 _You and me Nicky, I think we oughta go steady._ It hadn’t been out of _nowhere—_ well, her entrance had, but the flirting had been there. He figured it was natural for the sort of person she was, and he was never one to leave a lady out in the cold. He’d thought the chemistry was his rusted up processors trying to recognize something human in him again.

“You think?” Far from his most graceful answer, but he wasn’t doing a great job of catching up and he didn’t want her to start getting antsy.

“I do. Been waiting for a while actually, trying to tell if you were making pass or just a tease—,” she hopped up to sit on his desk, “—but I spent so _long_ waiting and it gets dull after a while. Then earlier I was telling Strong about it, and naturally he didn’t care but he said something that really hit me. He put down one of those big hunks of meat he’s always got and he says _humans make stupid problems._ Can you believe that Nicky?” He really could, but he wasn’t following her.

“Not a lot of people pulling wisdom out of supermutants,” he offered instead, because inevitably she would explain to him what the big secret was.

“Not a lot to be had, and they’d be the first to tell you so. Why wax poetic when you could wax the floor with someone’s guts?” She got that smile on her face that looked like _remembering,_ only instead of being faintly sad like it usually was, it was sort of unsettling. He wondered if he oughta ask which floor her and Strong had _waxed_ so he could avoid it. “Anyway, he was right. I was making this big stupid problem out of nothing— if I wanted to know if you were being square with me, the only way to find out would be to ask. So I’m asking.”

She spread out her hands like she was displaying the story, and was back to watching him. He flexed his hand— the metal one with the stubborn screw that wouldn’t quit coming loose so matter how many times he tightened it, glued it, or replaced it altogether. Far cry from what she was used to. He had dusty old flashes of her husband, a pretty big name around Boston even before he became a veteran. He was your typical handsome upper-crust guy, just outgrowing his _playboy_ phase and slipping into a comfortable _family man._

“The whole… synth thing doesn’t bother you?” he asked tentatively. He had to remind her before she got too bold— there was a lot of human inside him, and he wondered if she understood that whatever that part was, it wasn’t him. He had a few loose screws and a history of handyman work around Diamond City; Nick was the detective who got a craving for noodles and knew how to work a pile of evidence. Nick was the one staying late to fill out paperwork in the first place.

“I thought about that you know. I knew you were gunna ask so I sat down and figured I oughta give it a nice long _think._ You wanna know what I came up with?” She angled herself towards him a bit more fully, holding out two lightly clenched fists. She opened the one, splaying her fingers. “On one hand, so what? And in the other…” she gave a little flourish before opening that one, “who cares?”

“Almost everyone I ever met cares,” he told her wryly. The effect was a little lost because the hand thing was cute and for someone with plastic skin, he had a terrible poker face.

“I don’t. I know you aren’t human, and I know that it’s important to you that people acknowledge that. I was there with you— there are parts in you that aren’t the old skeletons rattling around. Nick Valentine didn’t buy bubblegum for the local newsie, and he didn’t know squat about Vaults or caps or supermutants. Nick Valentine _does,_ but he didn’t,” she explained. Her thought process could have been clearer, but it was something he sort of liked about her. Things made sense to Micah with a jarring simplicity— there was no room for brooding in her life, because she set the terms. It was her game and the players were going to have fun whether or not they understood the rules.

“Kind of an old model, compared to what you’re used to.” He was _harping_ on it and he hated to do it but he’d hate it worse for a few weeks to go by while he wondered what he’d done to be so lucky and she slowly realized that she wasn’t as into him as she’d thought. She wouldn’t be cruel, but she’d already been trapped in one relationship— he didn’t want to be the second on an unfortunate streak.

“I like that about you. I mean, of all people _I’m_ not gunna be the one to try to dictate how you look, but I’m fond,” she admitted. “You look like _you,_ like how you’re supposed to. You match up all the way, and to be honest it’s sort of… comforting.” She mulled on that for a moment, then shrugged. “You look like home too, all comfy and _Nick.”_

He tried to find something backhanded in that— it was a natural consequence of looking as _blatant_ as he did. When people were trying or faking being nice, they always had to reach _real far_ for something. _You barely notice the… minor skin issues. Oh if I didn’t already know, I’d say you had two whole hands._ “And your eyes,” she added after he’d been quiet for a minute. “They glow and when I wake up in the middle of the night I can always tell where you are.”

He could… honestly feel good about some of that.

“You trying to make me blush?” he teased automatically. It was part of their banter; safe, because he’d always thought it was one sided.

“You don’t blush,” she reminded him, which wasn’t the answer she’d usually give. “Your fans cough a little though, so I usually listen for that.” He tried not to fidget but for some reason that tickled him. It was… acknowledgement. It was comforting. It was Micah telling him that she knew for all the lines and all the chemistry, the straight-shooting and incessant urge to whip out the badge he’d never owned, she didn’t just focus on that. She wasn’t sweet on Nick Valentine, but she _was_ sweet on Nick Valentine.

He didn’t give a straight answer, but as he stood up so he could tilt her head back and see if he could wing this whole _kissing_ thing, he thought that maybe he was starting to catch on to this whole supermutant logic.

**Author's Note:**

> "This is terrible" yep and for more terrible fic delivered directly to your Tumblr dash, [follow me on Tumblr](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com). You can even talk to me. Awful, right.


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